In Windows, I can alter my PATH environment and make it recognize unknown commands. how can I do this in Linux?

Ie, I installed VIM and I have to fully qualify the path + command to edit a text file when I simply want to type {vim README}

You can just link vim to someplace in your current PATH:

# ln -s <path to vim> /usr/bin/vim

creating a vim link in /usr/bin which is almost always in PATH.

You can also edit some of your bash config files. Usually .bash_profile is where you would do that by editing the line like so:

PATH=$PATH:<insert path to vim directory>

In some distros you would edit .bashrc instead. These are hidden files in your home directory thus the "." in front of the file name. That will change things on a per user basis. You can also edit /etc/profile to edit the PATH for all users but that's usually more complicated. Note, you should reboot for the change to take effect.

thanks a bunch! I was thinking that 'linking' was the way to go. What yields the best performance? Or does that even matter? (ie how long it takes to load the said command)

As an aside, you don't need to open text files (such as README) in an editor. Much easier is to use more or less . I prefer less as it, in fact, does more!

I have gotten used to 'cat' to see text files even though it looks sorta messy at times LOL